CPLC Work in Progress Seminar: 'Commercial Contracts and Incentives for Choice of Law – A Systematic Analysis of the German Reform Debate'

Speaker: Ms Antonia Sommerfeld, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law

Which factors incentivise businesses to choose a certain law to be applicable to their commercial contracts? Looking into empirical data, in Europe English law is the most chosen law applicable to contracts, followed by Swiss law. German law remains behind. Some practitioners and scholars attribute this to the German rules on the control of standard-form contracts in commercial transactions. They argue that the provisions are too strict and that German law needs a reform to stay competitive in the law market. To the contrary, the opponents of a reform emphasise the necessity of the control of standard-form contracts to protect small and medium-sized enterprises against contracting partners with much larger bargaining power. I will analyse the factors determining businesses’ choice of contract law and their level of influence. Is there a time for change for German contract law?

This seminar is open to all LLM, MCL and PhD students, Faculty members and Faculty visitors.